Roommate Nightmares: The Prankster

Funny guys are always a good time. They keep you entertained so boredom doesn’t seep in and the stress of school stays ignored. Roommates that laugh together, stay together right? Wrong. It’s all fun and games until you live in a state of fear for the next prank. That’s right — living with a prankster is not all it’s cracked up to be. When your place of relaxation becomes a hole of anxiety, things can get out of hand.

You’re home from a long day of work and school and you’re finally able to unwind and cook a meal. You crack open a beer, turn on some tunes, and allow the master chef you know you are to begin. Next thing you know, you misplaced your beer that you just sat down, and the saucepan you just put on the stove. Are you losing your mind? Twenty minutes later and the entire kitchen is backwards and you hear cackling from the living room. You give up cooking and decide leftovers will have to suffice. You have lost another battle.

Staying on your toes, you look around before you start the shower. You think your roommate is still asleep, so you take advantage of the peaceful morning before work. You begin to let your guard down, even sing a little tune to your shower head, life is at ease. You begin to shave your legs when all of a sudden, your steaming shower becomes an avalanche of ice. Your physical stamina is being tested, but you bounce back, sure to hold back the reaction you know your roommate yearns for. Ten deep breaths, and you’re smooth sailing back to your morning routine. Wrong. The stinging chill of ice cascades down your body once more, and you have once again lost the battle you will seemingly never win.

You are now living in a constant state of fear for the next prank and jump at every sound that might be footsteps approaching you. Your mind plays tricks too, thinking your roommate hid your backpack when you were wearing it the whole time, or tearing apart your perfectly made bed to make sure those fake cockroaches haven’t made their way in again. You are losing yourself slowly, one prank at a time.

Pranking the prankster would only end in disaster. Amping up the stakes is not something you are interested in, nor do you have the mental capacity to contrive the same tricks as your omnipresent roommate. Your apartment now carries a ubiquitous fog that you realize you can never escape until the lease is up.